


The Shock of the Fall

by creatureofhobbit



Category: The Wilds (TV 2020)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-11
Updated: 2021-02-11
Packaged: 2021-03-17 04:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29344116
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/creatureofhobbit/pseuds/creatureofhobbit
Summary: Linh/Jeanette comes to her senses as she falls into the water before being shipped to the island.
Kudos: 7
Collections: The 100 Multifandom Challenge





	The Shock of the Fall

_I am no longer Linh Bach, I am now Jeanette Dao._

As she looks at her new bangs and Dora the Explorer type getup in the mirror, as she looks at the bogus social media profiles created for her (why was that even needed? It’s not as if where they’re going, anyone’s gonna have wifi to actually look her up and verify she is who she says she is. If all goes to plan, everyone will accept her as one of them, won’t even think they have any reason to need to verify that.) Jeanette reflects on how she has changed since the day she first met Gretchen Klein.

It almost makes her laugh to think back to that experiment where she first caught Gretchen’s eye; it’s ironic to think back now to the fact that she had got in trouble over not playing along with the bullshit, for coming right out and giving the answer they didn’t want her to give because they wanted her to influence everyone else into giving a wrong answer, and that having been what Gretchen admired about her. A teenage girl who knew her own mind, Gretchen had thought before being informed that in fact Linh was an adult control participant. Now look at her, supposed to be acting as though she’s one of these girls on the Dawn of Eve retreat, playing a part of the perky teenager. If she does exactly as she’s supposed to in this experiment, she’s effectively doing the one thing she’d objected to, had in fact hated, on that original experiment. In becoming Jeanette Dao, she’s turning her back on who Linh Bach really is.

Linh had loved the initial concept behind the experiment. As Gretchen had outlined her views on the patriarchal society bullshit, she was saying the words Linh had longed to hear. She’d felt that she and Gretchen understood each other. Every time Linh had walked past those sniggering boys, she’d imagined a society where people like them didn’t win, where they could be brought down a few pegs, where strong, empowered women could thrive, and Gretchen appeared to share her views, was offering her hope that her dream could come true. Yet seeing Leah drugged and unconscious at the bottom of the boat, and realising she was supposed to go along with this, Linh felt that Gretchen had never understood her at all. Did Gretchen really not understand that seeing Leah, (she won’t, she can’t think of her as Subject 4) in this state would only serve to remind Linh of that time she had been drugged by that group of boys in high school? Did she honestly think that that was something Linh could be okay with?

Maybe Gretchen had understood in some way; maybe that was why she had been vague with Linh about what exactly was going to happen in order to get the girls to the island, thinking that if Linh only knew about it at the last possible moment there wouldn’t be time for her to do anything other than go along with her plan. Yet in another way it showed that Gretchen could never have understood Linh as well as she had let her think she did, if she believed that Linh could be on board with this. The times they had laughed together, planned the experiment together, sang karaoke together…Linh saw them all with new eyes, questioned whether Gretchen had ever seen her as a friend as she had thought or just someone she could manipulate into doing her bidding.

When she said to Alex that the fall into the water had brought her back to her senses, it wasn’t entirely a lie. If anything, it had brought her back to herself enough to make her realise she didn’t have to go along with something she felt uncomfortable with, just as she’d known before she ever met Gretchen. It made her realise that while she still felt strongly in favour of a female-led society, lying to and manipulating these girls wasn’t the way to do it. She’d go along with the experiment, all right, let them take her to the island, maintain her Jeanette Dao persona among the other girls, at least at first. But she was no longer so sure she could trust Gretchen Klein, and if an opportunity came up to fill any of the other girls in, she’d take it, she’d get back to being the Linh Bach she had been before she’d ever even heard of Gretchen. And if that meant blowing the experiment out of the water, she could live with that. Linh no longer felt that Gretchen was going about it in quite the right way; they could still prove how well a female run society could work, but they could go about it differently, maybe see what happened if participants went into it knowing they were trying to build a new society.

So she refused all suggestions of medical help, insisted she was okay to get in the boat with Leah and be transported to the island, maintain her persona as Jeanette Dao.

But she was no longer sure that she would go through with Gretchen’s plan.


End file.
